Nine Till Three and Summers Free

by Mike Kent

  ‘What on earth have they done?’ I asked in astonishment.

  She chuckled again. ‘Nothing, I hope! The beat officer promised to show them how fingerprinting is done. They did a topic on police work last term.’

  I took out the timetable Mr Reed had given to me, but she waved it away quickly.

  ‘Oh Lord, don’t take any notice of that, my dear! I don’t think anybody here uses a timetable, apart from hall times for PE and things like that.’

  ‘But how do you make sure all the children make progress.. and cover all the subjects?’ I asked.

  ‘You make lots of notes.. and you plan meticulously. The children in my class are allowed a fair bit of control over what they do and when they do it, but there must be an order to it, and I must know that they’ve covered a fair bit of ground in the space of a week. Sometimes, of course, one thing will last for quite a time. Those Tudor houses took quite a while.’

  ‘They’re really very good.’

  ‘Yes, the children are very keen. They’re not the brightest bunch I’ve taught, but they’re very affectionate and you’ll get a lot from them. Anyway, have a walk around and talk to them.’

  Feeling greatly cheered by Mrs Bridgewood’s enthusiasm, I stopped by a group of children playing what looked like mathematical bingo.

  ‘Are you goin’ to take us then, Sir?’ asked a small snub nosed child with a shock of curly hair.

  ‘Well, probably not today,’ I smiled. ‘I want to see what sort of things you do, first. What’s your name?’

  ‘Alan Badger, Sir. ‘Ere, sit down fer a bit. You can ‘ave me chair. I’ll stand fer a bit.’ The other children at the table nodded seriously in appreciation of this sacrifice.

  ‘How do you play this game?’ I asked, sitting on the chair and subjecting myself to intense scrutiny from five small faces.

  ‘I’ll show yer, Sir,’ Badger offered. ‘It’s easy. You ‘ave a card with the numbers on it, like this, and then Tracey asks a ‘rithmetic sum like what’s three eights and then if you got the answer on your bit o’ card you cover it up. When you cover eight squares you win. You ‘ave to watch it ‘cos Fred ‘ere cheats a bit. ‘E ain’t much good at ‘rithmetic.’

  ‘Why don’t you ‘ave a go?’ Tracey suggested. ‘Give ‘im a card Wendy. We got lots over. You cover ‘em up with these bits.’

  One of the children, tinier than the rest, had been staring at me with half closed eyes and pursed lips. Eventually, he summoned the courage to speak.

  ‘You’re a stoodent Sir, ain’t yer?’

  I was momentarily taken aback.

  ‘We’ve ‘ad stoodents before,’ he added knowledgeably. ‘I didn’t like the last one much. ‘E kept shoutin’ at us. I don’t like it when they shout at us.’

  ‘Aw, shuttup, Fred,’ Tracey commanded. ‘Anyone ‘ud shout at you. Your mum shouts at you. ‘Cos you never listen, that’s why.’

  Fred was silenced. I smiled and concentrated on playing the game. All the children showed great excitement when they were able to cover a square, and apart from Tracey occasionally checking Fred’s card, the game continued uneventfully. After several minutes, Badger dug me forcibly in the chest with his elbow.

  ‘There y’are!’ he shouted triumphantly. ‘You got eight squares, Sir. You’re s’posed to shout out. Jus’ beat me to it, an’ all! Cor, you’re good at tables, ain’t yer, Sir?’

  He looked at my full card in deep appreciation.

  ‘I like this game, don’t you?’ said Tracey, collecting all the cards and scraps of paper together. ‘We ‘ave a shuffle round now an’ then someone else ‘as a turn at callin’’.

  ‘Do you like our Tudor ‘ouses what we made?’ asked Badger. ‘I saw you lookin’ at ‘em with Miss. We spent days on ‘em. I like makin’ models. I was gonna make my chimney out of fag packets but Miss don’t like us bringin’ fag packets to school.’

  ‘That’s ‘cos smokin’s bad for yer,’ said Tracey.

  ‘I know that. But we ain’t smokin’ the packets, are we? My Nan don’t ‘alf get through a few fags though. About five thousand a week, I reckon.’

  ‘What’s your name, Sir?’ asked another little girl at the table. She had a round, very pretty face with freckles and dark hair hanging down in plaits.

  ‘It’s Mr Kent.’

  ‘That’s a nice name. It’s my birthday the day after tomorrow. I’ll be nine. My dad’s getting me a bike.’

  ‘How are you getting on?’ asked Mrs Bridgewood, coming over to the table. I straightened up to talk to her.

  ‘Fine at the moment. They seem very lively. And they’re anything but shy.’

  ‘Oh, they’re lively all right. A bit too lively sometimes. They’re a nice bunch, though.’

  ‘How do you find time to hear them all read? Can they all read?’

  ‘Most of them. There’s an awful lot of work done with the Infant classes on reading. We try to make sure they can all read by the time they are seven. The children in the Infants are split up into reading groups for the first hour of the morning. It’s a very intensive session on reading schemes, but it also means we don’t have so much work to do on them in the Junior classes. You can concentrate on the ones who find it a real struggle.’

  ‘But you still need to hear them all read, surely?’

  ‘Sure. But you also rely on the parents to help. They sign a card saying they’ve listened to their child for fifteen minutes or so.’

  ‘Do they all do it?’

  ‘You’d be surprised at how many do. Parents aren’t supposed to care much these days, and some teachers feel the general view of the public is that this job’s a soft option. You know, you only work from nine till three and you have six weeks of Summer free. That’s nonsense of course. Mind you, some of the children, like Hema over there, would sit and read all day if you let them. She’s a sweet little thing. There aren’t many terrors in this class. John Rouse over there can be a bit hard going. Brilliant footballer, though.’

  ‘They all seem to be working hard at the moment.’

  ‘Yes, they are. But they slow down towards the end of the day and one or two actually grind to a halt. Not children like Hema or Jamie Dudmish though. He’s over there by the radiator. He’ll work all day on his own. But then, his parents surround him with learning experiences, and it makes a difference. Brian had this class last year. You’ll meet him at breaktime, but don’t take him too seriously. He’ll do his best to persuade you he’s a tyrant.’

  The children had become slightly noisier while they talked, and she clapped her hands softly. Immediately, the noise fell to a completely acceptable level again.

  ‘How soon can I have a try at teaching them?’ I asked, eager to begin.

  ‘As soon as you feel ready. Give yourself today at least to settle in, and have a go for an hour tomorrow if you like. Don’t try to do masses of individual work on this practice. Just teach them as a class and get the feel of what it’s like. You’ll find them hard work, but they all enjoy being in school.’

  ‘You seem to, as well.’

  ‘Mmm. I love it. I couldn’t do anything else. My husband thinks I’m crazy.’

  A girl came out and offered her folder for marking, smiling shyly at me and twisting the hem of her skirt with her fingers. Mrs Bridgewood looked through the folder, murmured encouragement, and then turned to me again.

  ‘Would you like to have a few for a while? I’ll tell you what. Alan Badger made a super model of Big Ben last week, and he didn’t believe it when he found out the big hand was over fourteen feet long. Why don’t you take him down to the playground and measure it out with him. Take a few others, too.’

  She looked round the classroom and clapped her hands. ‘Alan, John, Darren Adams, come here please. Okay, you two girls as well.’ The children hurried out to her.

  ‘You remember we were talkin
g about Alan’s model of Big Ben last week? Well, Mr Kent is going to take you to the playground and you can do some measuring to show you exactly how long the hands of the clock are. You can stay until the bell rings, but behave down there, please. You’d better take some sticks of chalk. And some rulers and a yardstick’.

  ‘Cor!’ exclaimed one of the children, turning to his friend with excitement, ‘We’re ‘avin’ the stoodent!’

  ‘What’s a stoodent?’ asked his friend.

  ‘‘im. ‘E’s a stoodent. ‘E ain’t a real teacher. ‘E’s jus’ learnin’ the trade.’

  The boy scurried across the classroom, collecting the equipment and sharing out plastic rulers amongst the group. The two little girls were wearing identical dresses, and they turned to each other and giggled each time I spoke. As they walked down the stairs, I asked the children about the paintings on the wall.

  ‘Mr Glover’s class did the one on the Middle Ages up there,’ said one of the girls. ‘We were in ‘is class last year, an’ we did the Middle Ages too. Lots of classes helped to do the other paintings. We did the one on Australia last term, with Miss. In ‘istory, I think the Middle Ages is intrestin’, don’t you, Sir? They wasn’t ‘alf cruel, but it’s intrestin’, ain’t it?’

  ‘Very’, I agreed enthusiastically. ‘What did you learn about the Middle Ages, then?’

  ‘All sorts, really. We done about ‘Enry the second and Becket and ‘ow William come over to this country an’ so on. I’ll show you a folder I done about it when we get back to class, if you like.’

  ‘Thank you. I’d like to see it very much.’

  ‘The bit I liked best was when ‘Arold got shot.’ Badger butted in. ‘‘E got shot in the eye, Sir.’

  ‘Do you know how we know that?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, ‘cos Mr Glover told us.’

  ‘No, I mean it’s all on a picture called the Bayeux Tapestry.’

  ‘The what? Oh, you mean that carpet thing. Yeah, we made one of them. I done ‘Arold gettin’ it in the eye.’

  ‘Shame someone don’t get you in the eye,’ cried the girl. ‘Ain’t ‘e bloodthirsty, Sir.’

  We’d reached the playground and I began to explain what I wanted them to do.

  ‘Can anyone remember how long the hands of Big Ben are, apart from Alan?’

  ‘Sir, Sir, I know, Sir,’ cried one of the boys eagerly.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘John Rouse, Sir’

  ‘Oh yes, the footballer.’

  ‘Ow did you know that, Sir?’

  ‘E’s a teacher,’ said one of the girls. ‘‘E knows everythin’.’

  ‘Well ‘e wouldn’t know I like football, would ‘e! ‘E ain’t bin ‘ere more ‘n five minutes.’

  ‘Mrs Bridgewood told me,’ I admitted.

  ‘’E is good, though, Sir. Steven Wheatley in the fourth year let’s ‘im play in ‘is team. I don’t like Wheatley.’

  ‘You’ve changed, ain’t yer?’ cried the smallest boy. ‘You was in love with ‘im last week.’

  ‘No I wasn’t, see! I never loved ‘im!’

  ‘Yes you did. You used ter look through ‘is classroom door at ‘im.’

  ‘No I never. That was Tracey.’

  ‘I think we might be forgetting what we’re here for,’ I said firmly. ‘John, you were going to tell me how long the hands were.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that. I think it’s about fourteen feet, ain’t it, Sir? The big one, that is.’

  ‘And the little one’s nine,’ Badger blurted out, determined to show at least a little of his knowledge.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Now, give me one of the yard sticks for a moment…’

  Rouse obliged. He was a tall boy for his age, with curly hair, a large round face, and two protruding front teeth that made him seem like a caricature from a comic. Badger had curly hair too, a mass of it that covered both ears. His nose was set slightly out of true, and both his bright red cheeks were smothered in freckles. Darren Adams, the smallest of the three, wore a grey hand-knitted pullover which hung almost to his knees, nearly covering his grey shorts. His hair stood on end as if he had just received an electric shock, and he wore a pair of tiny spectacles supported by full cheeks which looked as if they were permanently storing food, like a hamster’s pouches.

  ‘If you girls take your rulers and this yardstick into the smaller part of the playground to draw out the hands, and the boys do it round here, we’ll see who’s the most accurate,’ I said. The two girls hesitated uncertainly for a moment.

  ‘Sir, we ain’t allowed round there just yet,’ one of them said.

  ‘Why not? Because of the workmen?’

  ‘No. ‘Cos someone’s writ bum and stuff all over the wall,’ offered Rouse seriously, savouring the words with intense enjoyment. ‘Mr Reed says we ‘ave ter wait till Mr Burrows can get round and clean it.’

  ‘Really? Well, I hope it wasn’t you, John.’

  ‘No, it weren’t me, Sir. I can’t spell them words.’ Adams and Badger giggled. One of the girls looked slightly embarrassed.

  ‘Right, Well in that case you’d all better work round here. But don’t copy each other. Boys go over by the wall. There’s plenty of room there.’

  They separated into two groups and began to measure, working quickly and urgently and telling each other how they thought it ought to be done. Rouse was the only child to stand still, apparently taking charge of his group and acting as technical adviser. After giving them a few minutes to work on their own, I walked over to the girls.

  ‘Finished yet?’

  ‘Cor, no Sir. Give us a chance!’ the smaller girl exclaimed, rubbing out part of the line she had just drawn.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know either of your names yet.’

  ‘We’re both Susans, Sir. She’s Susan Brennan and I’m Susan Davis. We live in them flats. She’s my best friend, ain’t yer, Sue?’

  Susan Brennan was the quieter of the two, and, I suspected, might have been rather withdrawn without the friendship of her partner who questioned and chattered incessantly, as if she was anxious to know my opinion on everything she said.

  ‘Ow long you goin’ to be ‘ere, Sir?’ she asked, her nose twitching like a rabbit.

  ‘Just for a few weeks. It wouldn’t be worth stopping just for a day or two, would it? I wouldn’t get to know you all.’

  ‘Are you a real teacher, then?’ asked Susan Brennan. ‘Or have you just come to watch us, like?’

  ‘Well, not exactly a teacher. I’m training to be a teacher. At college.’

  ‘You’ll like our class, Sir,’ said Susan Davis. ‘Roland’s a naughty boy, but ‘e’s in ‘ospital ‘avin’ ‘is ‘pendix out. Rousey’s a nuisance too, and ‘e ain’t never away. ‘E’s cheeky, but quite lovable with it.’

  ‘He’s not lovable.’ Susan Brennan interrupted. ‘Just cheeky. Sometimes Miss gets mad with ‘im. Not often, though. She’s ever so nice, ain’t she Sue? I like all the teachers, though, don’t we, Sue?’

  Her friend nodded vigorously as she completed the drawing of a huge clockface and stood up proudly to look at it.

  ‘There, Sir, it’s done. Is that alright? The line’s a bit wobbly.’

  ‘Cor, Sir, ain’t them ‘ands big,’ breathed Susan Davis. ‘It’s a wonder they got ‘em up there in the first place.’ The boys also finished at that moment and came over for my verdict on their drawing.

  ‘When you look up at the real ‘ands they don’t ‘alf seem small, don’t they, Sir?’ said Adams. ‘You wouldn’t think they was that big, would yer?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘But if they were much smaller, you wouldn’t see them at all from the ground.’

  ‘Seems to me they must be ‘eavy, though,’ Adams added. ‘What if they fell off? I bet they’d take yer ‘ead clean off
.’

  ‘I don’t really think they’re likely to fall off,’ I said quickly. ‘Now then, I…’

  ‘You never know though,’ said Badger, inspecting the girls’ drawing. ‘They could do. My Gran knew a bloke once. ‘E was a window cleaner and ‘e was ‘igh up cleanin’ windows in one of them cradle things and the rope broke and ‘e fell off. The ropes looked safe all right, but they wasn’t. You can’t tell. My Gran always goes over to the other side of the road when she sees one o’ them cradle things. She says she don’t fancy one fallin’ on ‘er ‘ead.’

  ‘Shame somethin’ don’t fall on yours,’ sniffed Susan Davis. A bell rang inside and I looked at my watch.

  ‘We’d better go upstairs now,’ I said. ‘That’s the playtime bell, isn’t it?’

  ‘We’ll miss our milk if we don’t ‘urry. And our biscuits,’ cried Rouse.

  The boys picked up the pieces of chalk and raced to the stairs ahead of me. Susan Davis shouted out to Rouse.

  ‘Oi! What about the yardsticks?’

  ‘You were usin’ ‘em,’ Rouse shouted back at her. ‘You bring ‘em up!’

  ‘You lazy sod! Ooops, sorry Sir! ‘E is, though, ain’t ‘e?’ I turned to call after Rouse, but the boy had already disappeared.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘I’ll make sure he does it next time.’

  ‘Who’s your favourite singer, Sir?’ asked Susan Brennan.

  ‘I like any sort of music if it’s well played. I suppose I like classical music most of all.’

  ‘What, orchestras and all that?’ asked Susan Davis.

  ‘I’ve got Swan Lake, Sir,’ said Susan Brennan. ‘Miss played it to us one dinner time and I really like it. My mum got it for me, ‘cos I like dancing. You can borrow it if you want, Sir,’ she added generously.

  We reached the classroom just as the other children were going out to play. Rouse was hastily drinking a spare bottle of milk before anybody else laid a claim to it.

  ‘You’d better hurry up and have your milk, or you’ll miss your playtime,’ I said to the girls.